Thursday, 29 January 2009

Orlog - Tao - Flow - Dasein

Looking back over this blog, relatively short in time it is, it seems to reflect a kaleidoscope of moods, though perhaps too much orientated on the darker aspects of life.

Yet, despite the moments of gloom which seem, superficially, to be no different to the very dark times of 2006 for me, underlying it all there does seem to be a sense of progress.

Sometimes explicating and exploring things can be a form of therapy in itself: by blogging your thoughts and experiences, even - and probably especially - the bleak ones, you slowly come to a better understanding of yourself. And then how to move forward.

I have come to realise that all of my "problems" and "difficulties" have exactly the same underlying spiritual cause. A constant sense of strife, whereby my attempt to resolve it was to struggle and fight more. Yet there can be and never could be any victory on this path.

Rather, you win by letting go. In both Pagan and Daoist thought, the universal underlying law or way or Orlog or Tao is something that operates beyond any human control. It acts unto itself.

So, I had the same problem on every level.

For example, I wanted to write - in truth, it did not matter, particularly, on what - but never could find the words to say. I would constantly draw blank when confronted with the computer screen, much to my immense frustration, as an avalanche of thoughts would ordinarily be flowing through my mind the rest of the time.

I desperately wanted [romantic] love, so I poured all my energies out, searching, trying, a last ditch effort to find who and what I was looking for; that person whom I could share the endless intracies of life with.

I wanted a "career" and a sense of "going somewhere" - instead of a feeling of constant stasis.

And of me? What happened in this maelstorm? How did so many black clouds condense over and above me?

Release, rescind, empty, open: stop trying. Stop trying to even try.

It is a common, age old wisdom, but so hard to do in practise.

Sometimes, you have to throw the goals away and then they start to come back to you.

So, I started this blog. The only criterion was a simple one, and one that every writer of whatever type will always reiterate is most critical: just have the discipline of writing. That's it. It doesn't really matter - certainly initially - whether it is any good or not. But just keep doing it. Just flow. And flow is exactly what is happening.

Suddenly, where before I had to have a moment of "sublime inspiration" before I could write anything, now I can sit down and write. Whether any of it is worth reading is always ultimately up to the reader to judge, but irrespective of quality, the point is that the flow has occurred, and finally I have a natural outlet to externalise some of the torrent of thoughts that swirl through my mind every day.

I am certain the same discipline is necessary in every artistic endeavor, regardless of whether you do fine art, photography, pottery, music, whatever. Just keep doing it - and eventually you'll find your voice. You'll find the you in there that brings the human element.

Another thing I reflect on is that I always perceived my "problem" in terms of finding love was that I was too intense. That I just scared everyone off.

It wasn't the intensity. It was the spiritual turbulence that I had stirring around me!

People are very perceptive of energy.

Ironically enough, it was one of the guys at work today who illustrated this so clearly to me. Immediately upon arriving at work, He immediately shouted over in his enthusiastic and joking fashion that "I had a twinkle in my eye".

And he was absolutely right! For I felt more completely buoyant than I've felt in probably several years! Yet it was remarkable that from across the other side of the room, literally only moments after my arrival, before I'd utterly a single word or made any explicit gesture, that it was so blindingly obvious.

Things are starting to come to me. It is about cultivating the spirit of openness and receptivity, then having the impetus and confidence to develop them when the opportunity presents itself.

One of the ironies is that we tend to develop a sense of identity through attaching labels to ourselves, and also to the world and universe around us. We like to categorise and systematise things in an effort to understand things, in an effort to develop knowledge.

Yet sometimes the most progress is made when you discard all the labels; this isn't actually "you", this isn't actually "them", these people aren't just "this", and so on and so forth.

So, you empty yourself. You become the receptacle.

And what do you find?

Not emptiness, surprisingly. Not a void. You find being. You find that which cannot be explicitly described, but is known. Known before all other things. Indeed, that which must be known first and foremost to have the capability of knowing anything else at all.

Get rid of the self-programming, and see what flows towards you.

You'll be amazed. :-)

So, I'm managing to find the harmonious self that used to exist, before "it all went wrong". The intensity is still there but it is now accompanied by a certain "lightness of being".

Perhaps, in the distance, I see the first glimpses of the long lost joy. All I'd been doing by looking so hard was to go round in proverbial circles. Yet it had been within grasp all along.

Finally, I would not exchange the darkness, the suffering, the bleakness of recent years for easier ones.

They are actually a gift: a gift of a greater sense of self-knowlege, a deepening of my human experience on every level. The gift of treasuring what I do have, and the gift of giving more of myself, a gift of greater empathy.

It is a vastly over used quote, but a true one of Nietzsche's: "What does not destroy you makes you stronger." You cultivate strength through absorbing conflict rather than trying to blast it away.

3 comments:

It is like reading from my own mind... Your words are powerful & amazing.

I started my blog when I needed an outlet. I felt confined in my "place" in life & longed for somewhere that I would be accepted, just as me. Not long after that, I realized I was searching for nothing. That by writing, relaxing, I had "found" me. Cynical at times, goofy at others, but always me. Looking back over what I have written over the last year is like reading over each lesson or moment & strengthening what I learned the first time, keeping me level, which I desperately need! I get criticized by some for being too harsh or too emotional, but it's me. It's what I need to do on "paper" so that I can file away those thoughts and be open to the next moment.

Quotes...

"Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained"- William Blake"As a man thinketh in the heart, so is he"- Book of Proverbs, Chapter 23 Verse 7"For all things are in us psychically, and through this we are naturally capable of knowing all things, by exciting the powers and the images of wholes which we contain"- Proclus"The unexamined life is not worth living"- Socrates"I know that I hung, on a wind-rocked tree,nine whole nights, with a spear wounded,and to Odin offered, myself to myself;on that tree,of which no one knows from what root it springs."- Elder Edda"Less good there lies, than most believeIn ale for mortal men;For the more he drinks, the less does manOf his mind the mastery hold"

"A paltry man, and poor of mindAt all things ever mocks;For never he knows, what he ought to know,That he is not free from faults"

"The head alone knows, what dwells near the heart,A man knows his mind alone;No sickness is worse, to one who is wiseThan to lack the longed-for joy"- Hávamál"I look in your utmost self and see the universe not yet created."- Rumi"He who knows no life save the physical is merely ignorant; but he who declares physical life to all-important and elevates it to the position of supreme reality - such a one is ignorant of his own ignorance."- Manly Hall"The most peculiar thing is that this superstitious and insolent cult of work is proclaimed in an era in which the irreversible and relentless mechanisation eliminates from the main varieties of work whatever in them still had the character of quality, art, and the spontaneous unfoldment of a vocation, turning it into something inanimate and devoid of even an immanent meaning."- Julius Evola

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